This week, the Irish Parenting Bloggers are writing about back-to-school costs, a topic that's causing frustration for some and fear for many more around the country this week. In our house, we are at the early stages of the school life-cycle; we have just one of our three in school, and she's going into senior infants. ...
My lovely nanny Silvia moved on to a new job in a new career as a writer last week, as mentioned here. The kids sobbed, I sobbed, Silvia cried too on her last day. But happily for us, we found a fantastic new nanny last week - she started on Monday, and I was beyond delighted at ...
Working mothers are being put on the “mommy track” according to an article in the Independent last week. We have so many terms to learn all the time it’s hard to keep up – for anyone who is not familiar with it, “mommy track” refers to the sidelining of mothers in the workplace. Assumptions being made by ...
Tips for finding a childminder she said. Post your questions here she said. And the Gods of Taking Down Smug People thought "ha!" And even though I wasn't being horribly smug, take me down they did. Within one week of writing a blog post with tips for finding a childminder, I lost my own. Our lovely childminder handed her ...
So, you need to find a complete stranger to come into your house and be solely responsible for your children while you're not there. Scary stuff. Looking for a childminder (or nanny to use the more correct term) can be a very daunting challenge. When I was starting to think about this, a good and wise ...
Mommy-wars. Or since we're in Ireland, let's say Mammy-wars. I can't stand the term, but it's the widely-used name for the phenomenon of mothers judging mothers on every element of parenting, originally coined to refer to mothers working outside the home versus stay-at-home mothers. Newspapers love the SAHM/ mothers working outside the home debate, as do radio shows, ...
Today is my birthday, and I arrived home from work to an eerily silent house. As I looked around in mild confusion, two excited girls, one bemused little boy and one smiling childminder jumped out from behind the counter and yelled "surprise!" There was a cake on the table - this is a picture of the beautiful cake ...
Working from home: no to mascara and high heels, yes to school runs and meals with kids, and best of all reduced guilt.... Lots of people work in jobs that are not suitable for working from home, and plenty of other people are not allowed to by employers. But if you have children, and have ever considered seeking to work from home ...
Breach of trust, on every level. Like thousands of people who watched Prime Time last night, I’ve spent the morning trying to focus on work but my mind keeps going back to the images of children being slammed down on mattresses, tiny toddlers being punished despite being far too young, a little girl being cursed at ...
As a mother to three children under six, most of my adult conversations every day are with other parents, most of whom have kids in childcare. Over the last few days, a recurring topic is the news story about RTE's Prime Time sending undercover researchers into two Dublin creches, and gathering video footage of children allegedly being mistreated. See ...